School governors

To contribute to the work of the Governing Board in ensuring high standards of achievement for all children and young people in the school by:

• Setting the school’s vision, ethos and strategic direction
• Holding the Headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils
• Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent

• the vision and ethos of the school
• clear and ambitious strategic priorities and targets for the school
• that all children, including those with special educational needs, have access to a broad and balanced curriculum
• the school’s budget, including the expenditure of the pupil premium allocation
• the school’s staffing structure and key staffing policies
• the principles to be used by school leaders to set other school policies

• agreeing the outcomes from the school’s self-evaluation. Ensuring these are used to inform the priorities in the school development plan
• considering all relevant data and feedback provided on request by school leaders and external sources. This may be on all aspects of school performance
• asking challenging questions of school leaders
• ensuring senior leaders have arranged for the required audits to be carried out. Receiving the results of those audits
• ensuring senior leaders have developed the required policies and procedures. Ensuring the school is operating effectively according to those policies
• acting as a link governor on a specific issue. This may include making relevant enquiries of the relevant staff, and reporting to the Governing Board.
• listening to and reporting to the school’s stakeholders. These will be pupils, parents, staff, and the wider community, including local employers

• appoint the Headteacher and other senior leaders
• appraise the Headteacher
• set the Headteacher’s pay and agree the pay recommendations for other staff
• hear the second stage of staff grievances and disciplinary matters
• hear appeals about pupil exclusions

• Write school policies
• Undertake audits of any sort. Whether financial or health and safety - even if the governor has the relevant professional experience
• Spend much time with the pupils of the school. If you want to work with children, there are many voluntary valuable roles within a school
• Fundraise. This is the role of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA). The Governing Board should consider income streams and the potential for income generation, but not carry out fundraising tasks
• Undertake classroom observations to make judgements on the quality of teaching. The Governing Board monitors the quality of teaching in the school by requiring data from the senior staff and from external sources
• Do the job of the school staff. If there is not enough capacity within the paid staff team to carry out the necessary tasks, the Governing Board need to consider and rectify this

• get to know the school, including visiting the school during school hours. Gain a good understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses
• attend induction training and regular relevant training and development events
• attend meetings (full Governing Board meetings and committee meetings) and read all the papers before the meeting;
• act in the best interest of all the pupils of the school
• behave in a professional manner, as set down in the Governing Board’s code of conduct, including acting in strict confidence

Under usual circumstances, you should expect to spend between 10 and 20 days a year on your governing responsibilities. The top end of this commitment, is most relevant to the chair and others with key roles, such as chairs of committees. It equates to about half a day per week in term time.  Initially, we would expect your commitment to be nearer 10 days a year. However, there may be periods when the time commitment may increase, for example when recruiting a Headteacher.  Some longstanding governors may tell you that they spend far more time than this on school business. This is because it is common for governors to get involved in other volunteering roles over and above governance.

Under Section 50 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, if you are employed, then you are entitled to ‘reasonable time off’ to undertake public duties; this includes school governance.  ‘Reasonable time off’ is not defined in law, and you will need to negotiate with your employer how much time you will be allowed.

Support for existing governors and clerks to governors can be found in the "Services for Schools" website. You will need to request an account to have access to the site, further details can be found on the website.

Services for Schools